To Meet Demand, Hollywood Must Pursue Diversity By Design, Like We Did on United We Dream’s New YouTube Show
By: Juanita Monsalve
Recently, yet another study found that America’s film audiences prefer content that reflects the diversity of our nation — and yet, Hollywood continuously fails to catch up with demand. While the entertainment industry clings to its homogeneity, diverse content creators like myself have moved on to platforms outside the mainstream. And audiences have followed.
As the Executive Producer of No Borders, Just Flavors! — United We Dream’s YouTube series featuring young, immigrant contestants going head-to-head in a family recipe cook off — I was committed to setting a precedent for bringing young, diverse talent together and harnessing their creative power. One evening after a long day of filming, as our whole cast and crew gathered for dinner at a local ramen joint, our makeup artist asked the group if they noticed that every single person who was part of the show is an immigrant or person of color. Soon, they all realized no one had ever worked on a set that looked like ours.
“That’s not by coincidence or accident,” I weighed in, at the end of the discussion. “It’s by design.”
No Borders, Just Flavors! is probably one of the few shows out there to enlist an all-immigrant and people of color cast and crew. This outcome required something that’s missing in most of Hollywood: uncompromising intentionality when it comes to prioritizing authenticity and baking diversity into every aspect of the show.
The show is hosted by a Black Latina immigrant named Morelys De Los Santos Urbano with a Dominican accent that we never tried to minimize or soften through cuts or retakes. The four-episode series spans original family recipes from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and beyond. The contestants are judged not just for the flavors they produce, but also the human stories behind their creations.
We didn’t stop with what’s in front of the camera. Everyone involved in the production of the show is an immigrant or person of color — from set and brand designers to our makeup artist and lighting crew. Production was executed by a team composed exclusively of Black and brown filmmakers, with the vast majority also identifying as queer. We filmed in Houston, where nearly one in four residents was born outside the U.S.
No Borders, Just Flavors! is a pioneer in these efforts, but we’re not the first. Issa Rae’s Insecure started as a self-produced YouTube series, Mis-adventures of Awkward Black Girl, aimed at bringing a “slice of Black life back on screen.” Before Gentified’s all-Latinx cast was on Netflix, it was on YouTube. There is in fact a renaissance of content by people of color for people of color — you just won’t see most of it on mainstream tv.
Don’t get me wrong: this work isn’t easy. Not because the talent doesn’t exist, but because the traditional entry points are riddled with obstacles, instead of welcoming people from different backgrounds in. For example, when we initially posted a call for diverse contestants, we didn’t get any submissions. So, I asked the team to simplify the application to just ask for a name, email and phone number. That required additional follow-up for us, but it gave more people the confidence to apply.
It was worth it. Without these efforts, we probably wouldn’t get to hear from someone like Emmanuel, an undocumented immigrant in Episode 1 who cooked Carne en su Jugo to feel connected with loved ones back in Mexico. We’d never think to combine Egyptian with Tex-Mex cuisine, like Yassin did in Episode 3. We’d never know without watching Episode 2 that Betsabe’s papas rellenas taste amazing when you dip them in Shruti’s dal.
The benefits of authentic storytelling show up in less obvious ways too. The visual quality of the series is better because our crew understood how to light, film, work with various hair textures, and do makeup for a cast with a wide range of skin tones. Our shared immigrant identity even translated into less waste, as we ended each episode by breaking out the tupperware and sending unused ingredients home with local crew members.
More than just showcasing the power of food, I wanted No Borders, Just Flavors! to demonstrate what’s possible when immigrants are the authors of our own narrative. In order to do that, we had to treat diversity as more than just a box we checked. We had to create a world in front of and behind the camera that doesn’t exist yet. I hope that with more content being created by and for people of color, one day it will. While the final episode of the series premiered last week, I am excited about continuing this great work, and seeing what comes next.
Juanita is the Senior Marketing and Creative Director of United We Dream. She was also the executive producer of No Borders, Just Flavors. You can watch full episodes of the show here.
